Leads EMEA payroll operations across multiple countries, ensuring accurate, compliant, consistent delivery through external partners. Manages distributed payroll teams and managers, oversees escalations, mitigates operational risks, strengthens controls, monitors performance metrics, drives standardization and continuous improvement, and collaborates with Finance, Contracts, Payments, employees, clients, and delivery partners.
We’re looking for a driven and energetic Payroll Operations leader to take ownership of payroll delivery across EMEA, where payroll execution is delivered through trusted external partners and coordinated through our in-house teams based in both the UK and Dubai.
This is a high-impact leadership role at the centre of regional payroll operations — accountable for ensuring every payroll is accurate, compliant, and delivered with consistency and care across a complex, multi-country environment. You’ll combine operational control, partner management, and people leadership to drive excellence across the region.
On a typical day, you'll...
- Own payroll operations across EMEA, ensuring seamless delivery through our trusted payroll partner network
- Act as the senior point of accountability for payroll quality, accuracy, compliance, and employee experience
- Build and maintain strong, collaborative relationships with payroll partners, setting clear expectations and driving consistently high performance
- Lead and develop a team of Delivery Managers and payroll professionals across multiple locations, ensuring strong leadership, accountability, and execution
- Act as the senior escalation point for complex or high-impact payroll issues, ensuring swift resolution and the implementation of preventative controls
- Navigate complexity across multiple jurisdictions, proactively identifying and mitigating operational and compliance risks
- Use data, insight, and performance metrics to monitor outcomes, strengthen controls, and drive continuous improvement
- Drive standardisation and operational excellence across a diverse regional landscape, balancing consistency with local requirements
- Collaborate closely with internal stakeholders (including Finance, Contracts, and Payments) and external partners to ensure fully aligned payroll delivery
- Champion strategic initiatives that improve efficiency, service quality, and the overall employee and client experience
- Develop leadership capability within your team, fostering a culture of ownership, growth, and collaboration
Does this sound like you?
- You bring deep experience in payroll operations across multiple countries or regions, with a strong track record of delivering accurate, compliant payroll outcomes
- You’ve successfully led through others, including managing managers, and you’re comfortable developing leadership capability across distributed teams
- You thrive in complexity, quickly breaking down challenges into clear actions and structured solutions
- You are highly data-driven, using metrics and insight to monitor performance, identify risks, and continuously improve service delivery
- You build trusted relationships with ease, influencing internal stakeholders and external delivery partners to ensure aligned outcomes
- You have a strong continuous improvement mindset, always looking for ways to enhance controls, efficiency, and service quality
- You care about building high-performing, supportive team cultures where accountability, development, and collaboration are central to success
About
Our Story From our entrepreneurial origins as a founder led start up, to a high performing global player working with some of the world's most recognisable brands, activpayroll has both a fantastic history and masses of future potential. Our story began in 2001, when our founder saw a gap in the market to support the oil and gas industry. Today, we are a leading global professional service organisation, providing integrated global and domestic payroll solutions, expatriate taxation services, global HR services and online HR people management tools to over 1,200 companies in more than 150 countries worldwide. We’ve Got YouHiring people is more than an investment of time and money – it’s an investment of trust. You trust us to help you realise your fullest potential, work with brilliant people and recognise your achievements. In return, we trust your abilities, we trust your instincts and are fully behind you to deliver the great work you are capable of - empowering you to make the tough calls and valuing your opinions, ideas and abilities.
activpayroll Edinburgh, Scotland Office
7 Castle Street, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, EH2 3AH
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